From Generation to Generation

This could have been one of those information films that got us sniggering at school, but instead it studiously avoids any reference to sex as it takes thirty minutes to do what nature takes nine months to achieve. Using some perfectly adequate animated drawings, we follow a lone ovum (I don't think the word egg is ever actually used) as it makes it's way out of it's harbour and into the path of millions of marauding sperm. The narration decides not to inform us of just how those little critters get into her tubes, but does inform us of one lucky cell that penetrates the ovum and that's how life begins! The growth into an embryo and beyond is depicted in similarly animated style, augmented by a terribly cheesy soundtrack and some images of both nature and of a loving couple - we can tell because they hold hands - and their enthusiastic young son who appears to be in constant need of hugs, but without any actuality of the childbirthing process. It's a tricky subject for educationalists to deliver without embarrassing the viewers or upsetting the sentimentalities of the parents whose children this is undoubtedly for, so it steers a fairly safe course that presents enough science but does rather turn the entire process into something sterile - in both visual and descriptive terms. It does present some interesting facts, and is worth a look - if only to remind us of how we were taught sixty-odd years ago.